Moose Musings
by Ennui Enigma
Summary: Sherlock and John explore the theoretical physics of moose-induced decapitation on their way to search for a large black wolf and its companion hawk. Nod to another fan fiction story by mapleleafcameo, "malediction".


**A/N: Based on more strange email conversations. Don't ask…**

**Disclaimer: Don't own. Don't profit. Etc. No moose have been harmed in the writing of this story. Silly science. Any resemblance to real life is purely coincidental. All actual physicists should put on their moose-blinders now.**

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"Sherlock, tell me again, why are we driving through a country overburdened as it were by frozen cold-blooded precipitation and overpopulated by atmospheric wafting white crystals of water commonly known as snowflakes?"

"Because, John, it's for a case," the dark haired detective replied with a steely determination of resolve on his face as he navigated yet another slippery patch on the hazardous road. "Besides, I thought you were attracted to danger, that adrenaline rush that floods your cerebral cortex when the conscious catches up with the primordial subconscious and realises further existence is precarious."

"Adrenaline, yes," John agreed with a grimace, "but in the context where a gun and a sturdy pair of fast running legs can alter the course of events, not this – this crazy driving across a country known for its bacon and Arctic temperatures!"

"Relax, John," Sherlock tried to placate his colleague. "If I speed up a tad, any vehicle accident will be sure to end in our rapid demise, alleviating the fear of a slow and painful death. Shall I?"

"Um… no, I don't think I quite agree with that line of logic either, Sherlock," John answered, still finding himself distracted by the swirling whiteness outside their vehicle's windows.

"You rarely do," the driver of the vehicle grumbled under his breath.

"So, tell me more about this case that's so important you're willing to risk an excursion to a foreign country, not to mention the loss of my sanity." John muttered the last part more to himself though his detective friend heard it clearly enough. He checked his seat belt and shifted uneasily in his seat.

"You worry too much, John," Sherlock lifted a hand off the wheel of the car in a gesture of concern, unfortunately, also causing their forward momentum to be temporarily interrupted by a lateral slide. His intentioned gesture of concern was completely lost upon his seatmate.

"Bloody hell! Keep your hands on the wheel, Sherlock." John took some deep breaths and tried to regain a semblance of calm again. He wasn't entirely successful. He turned his head and concentrated on counting the seconds between the posts that they pasted alongside the road. "One one thousand, two one thousand – " Just then he spotted something dark and large and ominous up ahead. "What's that?" he cried, alarmed.

"What's what?"

"That!" John pointed to the faint shadowy outline of what gradually began to appear more and more like a large horse, or a deer, standing just off to the side of their trajectory.

"You outdo yourself in your powers of observation today, John," Sherlock nodded approvingly at his friend and turned to give him a congratulatory smile.

"Eyes, on the road," John quickly corrected.

"Just trying to be civil and conform to the social customs of the time with a bit of positive reinforcement." Sherlock frowned. "You're not being very cooperative in my socialisation."

"And you're not paying attention to these perilous driving conditions," John countered. "I think that object up ahead is one of the Canadian deer things called a moose, by the way." John noted the enormously large creature with long legs, giant snout, and branching antlers like tree trunks. "Think there's more of his kind nearby? A herd of them hiding next to the road?"

"You mean, a herd of meese?" Sherlock queried, this time remembering to keep his gaze directed forward with both hands on the wheel.

"Herd of moose," John corrected. "Aren't you supposed to be some sort of grammar king though? Are you feeling ok? Maybe this climate is impairing the subcortical and pre-motor areas of your cerebral cortex?"

"I'm perfectly fine, John," Sherlock huffed, his feather's ruffled by the implication. "I can assure you that my anterior hypothalamus is perfectly capable of maintaining my core temperature between 36.3 and 37.1 degrees Centigrade through its central and peripheral temperature receptors and compensatory autonomic and voluntary changes."

"Whatever you say," John muttered, raising an eyebrow briefly in amusement. "It's still a herd of moose, not meese. The word happens to be the same either singular or plural."

"I am perfectly aware of the modern conventional usage of the word, John. As you know, I do not confine myself to social customs simply for the sake of maintaining the integrity of ancient traditions that have no basis in logical application. A goose is singular. A flock of geese is plural. Therefore, one should logically conclude that moose, being singular, should be pluralised to meese. Goose. Geese. Moose. Meese. Now, if one wants to counter that, then I say that goose should also be changed such that we now have a goose and a flock of goose. It is a perfectly logical argument."

"I didn't say anything about logical, Sherlock." John sighed. "Since when has the English language ever been logical?"

Sherlock was silent for a few moments absorbing John's comment. "Alas, I find myself in the surprising position of agreeing with you on that last point, John," Sherlock shrugged. "It is disturbing to consider that the language of my childhood is inherently flawed, irrational, and unscientific in its principles."

John gave a wry grin. "Let's hope we don't run into any moose, be it singular or plural, on the road today. I'd hate to collide with one of those beasts. They are huge. They'd likely do serious damage to our vehicle, not to mention its occupants."

"Yes, of course it would serious damage," Sherlock agreed with a bit too much enthusiasm. "Think about the physics of hitting a furry elephant on stilts."

"A bit unsettling, actually." John's imagination ran a little too wild with the metaphor.

Blissfully unaware of his seatmate's current moosephobias, Sherlock's ego suddenly found itself catapulted front and centre. "Given the dimensions of this vehicle and its ground clearance versus the unusual height of the grown moose – a male being called a bull, by the way, John – the front end of our car would first make contact with the animal's legs, propelling it's core through our front windscreen. Admittedly, a moose is softer than a brick wall and therefore the force of the collision would be somewhat mitigated. However, we must still consider the hardness of the metal on our vehicle, our current cruising speed," Sherlock paused and glanced momentarily at the front speed gauge, "of 100 kilometres per hour, the angle of impact – in this case most likely perpendicular at 90 degree angles – and the mass and position of the passengers." He looked over at John and quirked an eyebrow, "that would be you and me, in case you were still catching up."

"Eyes on the road," John gritted his teeth and clenched the side handle of the car as he felt the vehicle slither marginally under the onslaught of a strong gust of wind.

"John, I've got everything completely under control. Stop worrying." Sherlock's eyes grew bright with excitement. _This was an experiment. Something to occupy his mind while he navigated the boring details of driving._

"Now, John, since you are a doctor and have seen more than a few trauma cases, I know you are aware of the five major factors that influence the survivability of a collision."

"Yes, yes, of course, Sherlock," John groaned. "That doesn't mean I want to test them out with a moose though."

"Oh?" Sherlock's face fell marginally.

"Alright, alright, I'll humour you," John recognized the look. "Just keep concentrating on your driving. The five factors are magnitude, direction, duration, deceleration rate, and position. Position including the type of restraint wherein the same load distributed over a greater body surface area is easier on the soft squishy parts." John glanced sideways at his driving genius and swore inwardly to apply for his Provisional License first thing, if and when, he made it back home – alive. "Ok, you happy now?"

"Very good, John," Sherlock smiled. "But you left out the intrinsic factors like age, health, gender, and physical conditioning of the passenger."

"Implicitly understood," John crossed his arms with a scowl. "Are we almost there yet? I don't know why we're still talking about a moose. We only saw one moose, and that was miles ago."

"Because it's fun, John, don't you see!" Sherlock really did seem a bit too eager.

"No, I don't see Sherlock."

"That's because you're an idiot," his tall flatmate dismissed his complaints mildly. "Hitting a moose is like colliding with a furry wall. Never did the calculations of car versus moose before…" Sherlock closed his eyes, ready to dive away into his mind palace with visions of racing cars and herds of meese, moose, whatever.

"Sherlock! Pay attention!" John shouted, clearly alarmed.

"Right, sorry," Sherlock almost looked a tad sheepish – almost, but not quite. "We are currently driving at an average speed of 100 kilometres per hour. If we collide into a moose standing in the middle of the road and it takes 3 metres to stop, we can assume an average speed of 50 kph for the car during the stop."

He glanced over at John and then quickly corrected himself. "Technically it should be a mathematical integration because it's non-linear, but I'm keeping it reasonably simple this time."

"Whatever you say, genius. Just maintain visual on your driving at all times."

"Of course," Sherlock agreed without registering John's last comment at all. "Three metres divided by 50kph would equal – " He paused less than a second, "—0.22 seconds, meaning that our deceleration would be change in speed divided by time or 126 m/s^2."

"Brilliant," John echoed with less enthusiasm than his current chauffer would have liked.

But, John, don't you see!" Sherlock was clearly enjoying this mental exercise.

"I see that you're not paying attention to the road again," John's eyes widened in alarm as a post passed inches from his side window.

"Just think, given your weight of 82 kilograms, if you were to hit a deer –"

"Moose," John corrected.

"Moose, deer, whatever," Sherlock dismissed the precise identity of the animal. "At 100 kph or 126 m/s ^2 of deceleration, that would be a total force on your body of 2322 pounds of lbf!"

"Clearly you are impressed by such tremendous moose-induced forces on my body," John declared, dryly. "I fail to see your point though."

"John, don't you see?!"

"No, I don't see the cause for such dangerous excitement in that crazy brain of yours."

"John, if we were to hit a moose, the unique angle and directional forces secondary to the mammoth beast's long legs and enormous body catapulting through our windscreen, there would be sufficient force to most likely decapitate the occupants."

A triumphant, satisfied expression settled onto Sherlock's face.

John's eyebrows raised an inch. "Seriously, Sherlock! You're excited because hitting a moose might decapitate us?"

"Well, of course, it's purely theoretical speculation until we test the hypothesis under real-road conditions," Sherlock countered.

"I'm not signing up for that experiment!" John rolled his eyes. Why was Sherlock driving anyway? He wondered this for the one-hundredth time.

"The problem with you, John, is that you lack imagination."

John opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. _Seriously, was he hearing his friend correctly? How did they go from driving through the snow and ice to a discussion about colliding into a moose and being decapitated? And now Sherlock was accusing him of having no imagination_.

"John?" Sherlock wondered why his friend didn't say anything. Perhaps he'd omitted some details or glossed over a few assumptions. John was always saying how he didn't explain his conclusions even though he felt they were overly simplified as they were.

"John, I realise I made some simplifications in averaging out the deceleration. And, yes, I probably confused you by not taking into account the tissue densities of bone verses muscle and sinew." He paused and grimaced. "Ok, I can see why you might be a bit confused too because the forces are not quite so clean and straightforward as I've outlined. Real life is obviously going to lead to more complex compounding variables in the equation…"

John raised his hand for silence. "No, no, it's fine, Sherlock." In spite of himself, he couldn't suppress a small smile, "It's all fine, mate. I get you. I wasn't complaining about the assumptions and oversimplifications. I just wasn't sure how to respond. I mean, imagine the paper headlines."

"Mmm… I suppose," the dark curls nodded.

"Yes, something along the lines of 'Mad Genius Predicts His Own Demise: Moose Beheads British Detective.'"

"Does put an interesting twist on things, I suppose." Sherlock mused wryly.

"Of course, personally, I'd predict injuries more along the lines of massive coup and countercoup brain contusions with shearing of the subdural arterioles and massive haemorrhaging leading to cerebral oedema and associated increased intracranial pressure. Increased blood pressure, decreased heart rate, erratic respirations, and imminent death."

Sherlock let off a bit on the acceleration pedal. John didn't usually go into such details.

John continued. "Of course, other injuries like bursting of the large vessels of the heart, splenic rupture, pelvic fracture with massive internal haemorrhaging might kill first. Ruptured intestines leaking hydrochloric stomach acid all around the abdomen is never conducive to continued life either."

"John?" Sherlock was suddenly a little concerned. "Are you feeling ok? You don't usually talk like this?"

"Oh sure, perfectly fine if you consider riding in a 3200 pound vehicle destined to test-crash into a moose, fine," John answered.

"Perhaps I should fill you in on the details of the case we're headed out to investigate?" Sherlock attempted to interrupt his friend's morbid musings. "Apparently there have been reports of a large, black wolf and a hawk that, according to my source, have an odd sort of malediction to each other."

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**A/N: To continue reading about Sherlock and John's investigation into this strange case, check out Malediction by fan fiction writer, mapleleafcameo. **


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